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Viserys was gold and burned flesh upon pale straw.
Viserys was golden, golden and terrible, and dead.
For a long time, there is darkness, all-consuming darkness that he cannot escape, and when he thinks to panic it is as if he has hit a wall. There is no emotion, nothing physically around him, even his very being is not there. There is nothing, he thinks, and then there is everything. It is as if his mind cannot handle what is happening. He is blinded by the light of wherever he is and his ears ring at the intensity of sound around him.
“ Make it stop! ” He screams, pleading for some form of peace. “ Please! I can not- ”
“In due time.” A voice tells him, placing what feels to be a bowl into his hands. The tips of his fingers becoming wet with the liquid that sloshes out onto him. Viserys wants to scream as he drops it; the wooden bowl creating such a sound as it hits the stone floor that he could feel blood drop from his ears.
The door closing only seems to confirm that the figure has left. That Viserys is finally somewhere that the place that he had once been, but he can’t quite remember how he got into the darkness to begin with.
Hours become days, days become weeks, and as the weeks turn to months he slowly begins to regain his sight and his hearing. It is then that the figure comes once again--a woman in red--who smiles down upon him.
“Bringing you back from the dead was difficult. Many great sacrifices were made to the Lord of Light. Prayers that lasted through mornings and songs that lasted through nights. If it wasn’t for your future you surely would have been left behind.” The red woman held out her hand for him to take. An unspoken offer that Viserys does not want to give away. Something tells him to take it. Someone, a voice from the flames that light his cell, and when he takes her hand he remembers.
Poor, sweet Dany, watching as he died. Molten gold crowning him as King. A crown that killed him as it sat upon his head. He had burned. His flesh melting against the heat. Unlike anything that a dragon should be.
“My name is Kinvara and I am here to offer you a chance to fix everything, Viserys Targaryen.”
Viserys was white and reborn.
Viserys was white and scared, and somehow not dead.
He learns of what happened to him as Kinvara leads him out of the shadows of his cell and into the light of a temple. His memories of what he did before his death are blurred, smeared ink on paper, yet he remembers his death. He remembers that he has a sister and that she watched him die. And as Kinvara tells him to sit before a burning heart he is told of what lead him here. That a red priest had happened upon his corpse and had brought him to Asshai. That the Lord of Light had sought his rebirth and that he would have a role to play in what was to come. That his body was cleaned, burned against the red sky, his soul cleansed from the darkness.
He learns of his sister next - his sweet little Dany, who brought dragons into the world again, whose very being was a sign that the Lord of Light had seen the darkness that is coming. The red priestess speaks highly of her as she explains these matters. All of Asshai whispered prayers in her tribute and the priest and priestess were moving towards the west. To Volantis and Pentos, to Bravos and Slaver's Bay, they were spreading the word. The Prince that was Promised has entered the world. The Prince that was Promised marks the beginning of the end.
For hours more they sit and Viserys is to pray in tribute of his thanks. Kinvara tells him that it will come with ease once he begins his role.
“But I don’t know what my role is.” Viserys finally tells her, his voice that of a frightened boy, and Kinvara only smiles.
“You already know what you must become.” She tells him, stepping towards a bowl filled with a white flame that sits upon the Lord's altar. And she throws it down at his feet. The flames spreading as if the temple floor was made from oil. Eating away at the white cloth tunic that he had been dressed in, and he forces himself to stop from panicking as he realizes that he isn’t burning.
“You will be red, Viserys. A servant to the God that has allowed you to be here once again.”
Viserys was red and he sought redemption.
Viserys was red and he remembered, and he hated himself for it.
White is the colour of the students of the Lord of Light. The ones that have yet to pass their trials to step out of Asshai. For a long time, he remains dressed in white, longer than others, as he sees faces come and go. He remains in the Temples during those times. He cleans during the break between night and dawn, and he prays with the others during the early mornings. Once the sun sets highest in the red sky he walks among the streets for hours on end before returning to read from the old books in the Temple. He continues this pattern until Kinvara returns from the east with a priest acting as her shadow. She tells him that his first trial is to begin when she sends word from the West.
And it is only when the white blooms of the black sap trees begin to fall that Kinvara sends word that Daenerys is conquering Slavers Bay. That the slaves are being freed in numbers that have never been done before. So much so that word has spread into Volantis where nothing else is known except for the slavery of another. It is when those white blooms fall that Viserys travels to the furthermost western reaches of Asshai to begin his work.
For the first month, he heals others, giving them potions and ointment to cure the marks against their skin and the sickness that remains underneath. He walks through desolate mountains and sunken caves until the soles of his feet are coated in red. He sees creatures with crimson eyes and people that have unnaturally hard skin. He only returns when word reaches that he is needed to heal. That he is needed to spread the word of the Lord of Light in Tiqui. It is then that he begins to remember the wrongs that he has done.
When he helps heal the burns upon a young girls back he remembers how often he had abused Dany once the world seemed hopeless for them. How the mindset destroyed him when no matter how many times he tried to fix their problem only seemed to worsen. How no matter how many times he kissed away her bruises he would only give her more. Viserys later sits within an orange grass field to wonder of what happened to drive him mad.
When he uses Samyrian wire to cut through the branches of a thorny flower that was placed upon a man's head he remembers the depression that came from selling his mothers crown. How he had done so after days of Daenerys cries of hunger until he knew that his sisters' life could go without the last item of their mother.
And when the year begins to end marking his final months in Tiqui he goes to one final person in need of him. When he holds a woman who was once a slave, comforting her over the loss of her babe, he finally feels something break. He blesses her and as the hot rain descended upon him, he finally cries. He holds her and cries, for both her and her babe, and for himself and Daenerys. He only screams when he steps away to go back to Asshai.
Five days upon the road of dark, inky soil a boy approaches him with a box marked with the name of Kinvara. Inside is the same necklace that mirrors her own with that same red gem that only Asshai fire can create. It only makes him break away even more. Viserys cries and screams, he mourns, and above all he hates himself for what he has done. Even when he returns to Asshai to find Kinvara holding a pair of red robes he wonders what he had done to deserve this. How had the Lord of Light seen good in him to give him a reward that so many couldn’t have?
“You did well, Viserys, but even in red your trial has not ended. Your sister sits as Queen in the Meereen and until it is time you will come with me to Volantis. There you will find peace.”
Even then, Viserys thinks, peace is not something that he deserves to be given.
It is only later that he notices the markings upon the metal mirror that of his mothers crown.